The Warrior Indoor Percussion Show

The 1998 Elizabeth Forward Percussive/Visual Ensemble, in it's very first year competing within the indoor medium, is excited to present "A Day In The Life Of A City Street", a complex melodic and rhythmic chronological journey through a normal summer Friday in our fictitious city block. We display the various tambours and colors of music that you hear on a given day in any large town. We start off the day early in the morning with the simple rhythm of a streetcleaner's broom, and then create texture with the brooms of the local store owner and housewives just trying to keep their neighborhood tidy. We then add various layers of rhythm and sound as more people emerge to get their day started. We then come to a climax rhythmically and segue into the start of the workday for the 9 to 5 crowd. Since these people always seem to be in a hurry commuting to work by various means, we try to capture the frantic mood with a fast paced, visually exciting passage that features advanced scales and arpeggios from our melodic pit percussion, as well as some radical battery percussion section features. Once our "bus" picks up the workers and heads off to their final destination, the afternoon sets in and the kids come out to play. Never listening to the music of the generation that proceeds them, these kids will turn up the volume and get you groovin' to some Hip Hop. Listen for some funky riffs out of the pit, and also look for some advanced rudimental flam and paraddidle passages throughout the entire battery. As the night falls and we fast forward to the loacl Jazz club, pay particular attention as we feature our snare section individually. Then enjoy the music of Charlie Parker, as we do our interpretation of Bird's Donna Lee. As we close out the night and the club shuts down, we reprise, by recapping in reverse order the melodic and rhythmic highlights we've hear throughout the day. We come full circle when the club owner cleans up around his façade and we end the show as it started, with one person sweeping the same simple rhythm, we began with.

We at Elizabeth Forward hope to be a consistent top performer in the indoor program. We are delighted to play our part in the Elizabeth Forward School District philosophy of being a leader in the high-tech area by being at the forefront of electronic music technology. We are using various state-of-the-art integrated sound synthesis, sampling, and Musical Instrument Digital Interface triggering techniques. After both observing and teaching at the national level, our staff feels that this technology is what the top level ensembles are heading towards, and by eduacting our students as to what the equipment can do and how it does it, we can put them ahead of the game in their high-tech futures. All of the sounds you hear stay within the parameters of judging criteria by being electronically triggered live by the performers. No pre-recorded or taped music is used. We hope to be the area's finest representative at the TIDA/NJA Championships in Wildwood, N.J. in May, and with the experience, dedication, and enthusiasm of our district, staff, boosters and performers, that should be a most realistic goal not just for this year, but for many years to come.

Caption Head, Concept Design, and arrangement: Lee Wasson
Director: Rob Furman
Instructional Staff: Tiras Allen, Mary Beth Keller, Kevin Luster, Mike Schreiber, Henry Sowell, Tamar Smith, and intern Pat Jones